Monster
by RAMSPEL
Summary: While trying to decide how to punish the traitorous prince, Elsa confronts Hans about manipulating Anna and trying to steal the throne. This takes place between the last two scenes of the movie. A one-shot.


_Author's Note: I've had the idea for a story where Elsa confronts Hans about manipulating Anna and trying to steal the throne for a while, and I've finally gotten around to writing it. This story is sort of a companion piece to my story Icebreaker. It takes place in the middle of that story after the first two scenes. But you certainly don't need to read Icebreaker to understand this one, nor does it matter which story you read first. Also, I don't own Frozen._

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The guards outside the dungeon all gave a quick bow when they saw their queen approaching, causing Elsa to wonder if they were acting out of respect or fear. Sure, these men have always shown her and the rest of the royal family this same degree of respect long before any of them knew she had ice powers. But Elsa worried their behavior was now motivated by the fear that she could turn them into a block of ice with just one thought.

The queen also wondered how many of these men were guarding her cell a few hours earlier. There were probably at least a few of them here, who were put in charge of ensuring she couldn't escape. And maybe their curtsy now was a way to show her they trusted their queen and they pledged their loyalty, but it was more likely—Elsa figured—they feared retaliation for their part in her imprisonment.

"Thank you, but there is no need for such ceremony right now." She told the men, hoping to convey she held no hard feelings. Their duty was to the people of Arendelle, and at the time she had been a threat to everyone. "I am here to see Prince Hans."

"Of course, Your Majesty." The captain said. He proceeded to unlock the door leading to the dungeon. "I will escort you myself."

"That is very gracious Captain, but I would like a moment alone with the prince."

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, the prince attempted to assassinate you just a few hours ago."

"I appreciate your concern, but as I'm sure you can gather, I am more than capable of defending myself if the prince tries to endanger my life again."

"Of course, Your Majesty." He stepped aside.

Elsa walked through the door, but before she had a chance to walk down the hall to Hans' cell, the captain spoke once more. "Your Majesty, before you go, I feel I should advise you to be wary of the prince's words. While I doubt you will be foolish enough to be taken in by his lies, like my men and I were, I still warn you to be cautious."

"Don't worry, Captain, I am well aware of how manipulative the prince is."

Elsa found Hans sitting on the bench of his cell, he rose to his feet and bowed when he saw her.

"Your Majesty." He greeted her in a somber tone.

"Prince Hans, I thought it was only fair to allow you the chance to plead your case before I decide how to handle your treason." She kept her tone official and void of any emotion, even though the sight of Hans filled her with rage.

"Your Majesty, I know my actions can appear self-serving when taken out of context, but I beg you to see past appearances and know I never wanted to hurt you, but I knew how much you care about your people, and I did not doubt your willingness to sacrifice yourself to save your people from powers you had no control over."

Elsa had to hand it to Hans, he did have a way with words and he was a good actor. If she hadn't glimpsed his true self on the fjords earlier she might have believed the sincerity he spoke with now.

"Hans, please don't be mistaken and think by allowing you to plead your case, I will entertain any more of your lies."

"Queen Elsa, please know while I take full responsibility for the mistakes I've made in my attempt to end the eternal winter, I was only trying to fulfill my promise to Princess Anna, to take care of Arendelle."

"Were you trying to fulfill your promise to my sister when you locked her in a room to die alone?!" Elsa spat, the thought filling her with rage.

"Like I tried to explain before, Anna is confused. She was so weak from having her heart frozen she didn't know what was happening. I am devastated she is questioning my devotion to her and while she was in so much pain she doubted my love, but I beg you to see the truth. Before when you planned to leave, you asked me to take care of your sister. I can't imagine you would ever do that if you didn't know deep down how much I care about her."

"If you really cared about my sister you wouldn't have told everyone she was already dead, or are they all _mistaken_ as well! I did believe you cared about Anna, but I was wrong about you. I should have questioned why you wanted to marry my sister after only knowing her for a few hours and sensed something was wrong then, but instead I assumed you were simply smitten and impulsive. It's a mistake I won't make again. Now I see you for the cold calculating man you really are."

After she finished, the innocent pleading expression Hans wore faded and a flash of rage came into his eyes. It reminded Elsa of the Hans she had seen out on the frozen fjord. And even with her powers, she found herself grateful for the bars separating them. But a few seconds later Hans managed to regain his composure and a smug expression took over.

"Oh Elsa, do you think this is over, that you've won?"

"I'm not the one who's behind bars."

"For now, but just a few hours ago our circumstances were reversed. Your own people were ready to have you killed because they know you are a threat to their very lives. And once their elation at no longer being in danger of freezing to death wears off, they'll remember who almost killed them in the first place and who took care of them while you abandoned them and hid in the mountains."

Elsa felt a chill run down her, which had nothing to do with the temperature, although it seemed to have dropped a few degrees in the last few seconds. Realizing she was losing control of her powers she wrapped her arms around her waist. She looked up at Hans and saw the glee in his eyes, then she forced her hands back to her sides. She couldn't let him see how much his words were getting to her.

"People know the truth now. They know you were just playing the hero so you could use this crisis to try to insert yourself as king."

"I inserted myself as king? That's funny, I seem to remember Anna leaving me in charge."

"Only because she didn't know your real motives, she trusted you had Arendelle's best interest at heart."

"Yes, Anna is just so trusting, she made it so easy for me. You know in all my planning I never expected her. Sure, I never expected you and your whole ice thing either, but then again how could I have predicted that? But Anna never doubted _anything_ I said to her. She actually believed I could love her after we just met. I've never met someone so naive and easy to control as her."

"Don't talk about my sister!"

Jagged ice spikes formed on the stone wall of Hans' cell. His eyes glanced at the spikes and just for a second Elsa saw a flash of fear enter them, but in the next instant it was gone and his smug grin returned.

"You know nothing about her!" She continued. "If you did, you'd know a few hours is more than enough time for any good and decent person to fall in love with her! Unfortunately, you are neither of those things! The only reason you were even able to fool Anna is she believes other people are as decent and genuine as her."

"Yes, I guess you do have a point. We can't place all the blame on Anna. After all, she has lived a very sheltered life, hidden away in a castle for all of those years, being ignored by everyone. She was so desperate for someone to love her that all I had to do was show her the slightest bit of affection and she was ready to believe anything I said."

Elsa wanted to argue with Hans, to call him out on his lies, but she couldn't because she knew everything he said was true. The dungeon continued to get colder by the second and snowflakes began to fall all around them

"You act like I'm the villain here, but all I've done is take advantage of the situation. I didn't cause any of this. I'm not the one who nearly killed the entire kingdom, or froze your sister's heart.

Sure I used Anna, but you were the one who made her feel unloved and rejected in the first place. No, I think it's clear who the real villain is. And more importantly, I think it's going to be clear to the people of Arendelle which one of us is a monster."

"People aren't going to listen to you," Elsa argued, but even to her, she sounded weak and desperate. "not after you've been trying to take over this kingdom since you got here. You confessed as much to my sister."

"Yes, I did, but it is my word against hers. And how does anyone in Arendelle really know they can trust her? Maybe she has been in league with you this whole time and the two of you have been plotting to destroy Arendelle together."

"Anna didn't even know I have powers, how could she have been in league with me?"

"Well, of course, I know she wasn't, but it won't be hard to convince the rest of the kingdom she was, or that she knew about your powers the whole time. In fact, it won't be too hard to convince everyone she has sorcery in her too. How else could she have survived being turned to solid ice?"

A blast of ice shot out of Elsa's hand and hit the wall a few inches from where Hans stood.

"I won't let you do it!" Elsa warned. She held out her hand and another icy ball of light swirled around in mid-air about an inch in front of her palm just waiting to be released. "I won't let you spread lies about us and put my sister and me in danger!"

Hans smiled again.

"Oh Elsa, I don't see how you can stop me because even with all of your powers, you're still too weak to use them."

"I am not weak!" Elsa could feel her anger rising with each word Hans spoke. She was losing control of her powers and it was taking every bit of her energy to refrain from blasting Hans (especially since part of her long to do just that).

"You spent thirteen years hiding from the world, then once everyone saw what you could do you ran away, and you say you're not weak? Besides, it doesn't matter you won't use your powers because everyone is always going to see you as a monster."

 _He's right._ The thought almost caused her to lose the little control she had left. Why was she fighting so hard to control her powers when everyone already thought she was a monster? Then an inconsistency broke through her wall of self-loathing and pity.

"You're wrong!" The ice-ball hovering near her hand dissipated and she dropped her arm to her side. The ice spikes along the cell receded as well. "Not everyone thinks I'm a monster. Anna doesn't, even after she's seen how destructive my powers can be. She loves me, powers and all."

"Anna also thought you'd never hurt her, look how well that turned out!" He spat, but the bravado Elsa had heard in his voice before seem much too forced this time. She could see how desperately he needed her to believe him. Now that Hans' words had lost their vice-like grip on her emotions, she could see clearly how he'd just manipulated her.

"I am also not the monster here, _you are_. You lie and manipulate anyone you can just to get what you want, with no regard for who gets hurt in the process. My sister offered you her loved and trust and you betrayed her, all so you could steal the throne, but even after all of that you still failed. You underestimated Anna because you only saw her as someone you could use, and in the end, she stopped you."

"Your sister is a fool who got lucky! If she had any sense she'd stay as far away from you as possible! She probably won't be so lucky the next time you lose control of your powers, because even though Anna is too naive to realize it, you and I both know there will be a next time. You can only control your emotions for so long."

Hans' words gave Elsa a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she fought to focus on love instead of fear. She took a deep breath and turned her attention back to Hans.

"I see what you are doing. You want to scare me so I lose control of my powers and you can pretend to be the hero again. But you're not saying anything I haven't said to myself thousands of times over the past thirteen years, and I am _done_ hiding. And I am not going to let you make me look like the villain. I'm not going to use my powers to hurt you, Hans, even though I could.

Nor, will I use my powers as queen to harm you, although your actions more than justify me to punish you to the fullest extent of our law. I will not let you destroy hundreds of years of goodwill and mutual trust between Arendelle and the Southern Isles. I'm going to send you back to the Southern Isles and let everyone know what you did and what kind of man you are. I'll let your own people decide what to do with you.

But if you ever come near my sister again or try to hurt her in any way I'll show you just how much damage my powers can do!"

She turned away and walked to the door.

"People will say I'm a hero for trying to stop you!" Elsa didn't even turn back to acknowledge him; she had spent far too much time listening to anything he had to say already.

Once she left the dungeon, she caught a glimpse of the clock tower through the castle window and realized how late it was. Her conversation with Hans had taken much longer than she realized. Elsa hurried to find Anna, whom she'd promised she would try to have dinner with that evening. Even though she never guaranteed she'd make it, she still didn't want to disappoint her sister—again.

When she found her, Anna had already started eating. She and Olaf sat at the end of a massive table filled with plates of food.

"I see you both have been keeping the kitchen staff busy." Elsa teased.

They both turned and Anna got to her feet.

"Elsa, you're here!" Anna exclaimed, surprised to see her sister. "I mean, I know you said you would try to be here, but I know you're really busy dealing with everything and I thought you'd...I mean I sorry I didn't wait for you to start, we would have if we would have known, but it was getting kind of late and I shouldn't have just assumed…" She trailed off.

"It's okay." She couldn't blame Anna for assuming she'd bailed on her again, not after all the times she'd promised she would try to spend time with her sister only to cancel on her at the last minute, always using the excuse of being 'too busy'. "I glad you weren't waiting. I'm sorry, I did get a little held up tonight, but I'm here now."

"Well, I'm glad you made it."

"Me too." She said. Then without saying anything else she walked over to Anna, wrapped her arms around her, and squeezed her tightly.

Anna surprised by the sudden hug, stiffened for a second before melting into the embrace.

Finally, after a moment of both sisters basking in the closeness, Anna spoke up. "Elsa, is everything okay?"

 _No. I came so close to losing you today—for good._ She thought, but to Anna she said. "I love you."

"I love you too, but are you sure you're—"

"I know."

"What?" Anna pulled out of the embrace to give her sister a quizzical look, but still held onto her hands.

"I know you love me because even after I ignored you and treated you terribly you never failed to show me you still love me, but I haven't. I…" Her voice started to crack.

"Hey, it's okay!" She wiped a tear away from Elsa's cheek. "You don't have to apologize. I understand now, you didn't think you had a choice but to shut me out, and you were just trying to protect me from your secret."

"No, Anna, it's _not_ okay! I made you doubt you were loved, that you deserved to be loved! I'm so sorry! I'd give anything to go back and do things differently, but I can't. But I will do better because I never want you to have any doubt I love you. I do, more than you could ever understand." She hugged Anna again. "And I promise, from now on my door will always be opened to you."

Another silence passed between the sisters, both being too emotional to say any more, then they both felt a sudden chill against their legs. They looked down to see Olaf wrapping a stick arm around each one of them. "This is wonderful! You both love each other and I love you both too!"

Anna and Elsa looked at each other and started laughing.

They turned back to the snowman and Anna said, "Thanks, Olaf, we love you too."

Then they pulled him into their hug.

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 _Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it._


End file.
